No matter how many people say that Christmas Day games are just another game and the Miami Heat are just another good team, everybody sure did tune in when the Heat and the Lakers met on Christmas Day. The Heat-Lakers game drew a fast national rating of 6.4, which is a 45% increase in ratings from last year’s Cavaliers-Lakers game and ABC’s highest rating for an NBA regular-season game since Shaq and Kobe met on Christmas Day 2004.
Overall, the five games that aired on ESPN and ABC over the course of Christmas day drew the highest average rating for either network when airing multiple NBA games. Some people love the Heat and a lot of people really don’t like them, but everybody has been watching them.